Axios Power Players: 9 influential people in Miami in 2022

They’re entertainers, sports activities figures, enterprise leaders and politicians, all with one factor in widespread.

• Whether or not you want them or not, the people and entities who make up our inaugural Energy Gamers listing formed our metropolis in 2022.

The way it works: We mirrored on the previous yr’s headlines, thought of what’s coming in 2023 and polled you all, our pricey readers.

• The unscientific listing is produced fully by the Axios Native editorial group and isn’t influenced by promoting in any means.

Here is the place we landed …

1. Tua Tagovailoa

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has overcome persistent criticism and an early-season concussion to develop into an MVP candidate.

• Now, he is on the cusp of taking Miami to the playoffs for the primary time since 2016.

Largest transfer of 2022: After recovering from an damage that led the league to vary its concussion protocol, Tagovailoa led the Dolphins on a five-game profitable streak.

What we’re watching: Whether or not Tagovailoa can end the yr sturdy, be the franchise quarterback of the longer term and assist carry a Tremendous Bowl to Miami.

2. Ken Griffin

Ken Griffin, the founding father of multinational hedge fund Citadel, immediately grew to become the richest particular person in Florida when he introduced his reported $29 billion fortune to Miami this yr.

Largest transfer of 2022: Griffin moved Citadel’s world headquarters from Chicago to South Florida and purchased up $1 billion of the realm’s most coveted actual property.

What we’re watching: Griffin seems to have political ambitions. The GOP megadonor has already thrown his assist behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if he decides to run for president in 2024.

• Griffin has stated he might doubtlessly function Treasury secretary someday.

3. Yung Miami

Yung Miami (born Caresha Brownlee) went from promoting garments on Instagram to collaborating with Drake and forming the rap group Metropolis Ladies.

• The Miami rapper additionally launched her personal podcast this yr referred to as “Caresha Please,” during which she interviews music stars like Megan Thee Stallion and Saweetie.

Largest transfer of 2022: Yung Miami was an government producer for “Rap Sh!t” on HBO along with her Metropolis Ladies co-founder JT. The present, from “Insecure” creator and star Issa Rae, fictionalizes the rise of the feminine rap duo within the 305.

What we’re watching: Yung Miami wants to release another album and extra episodes of her podcast, which took a break in September. However there isn’t any phrase but on when both might come.

4. Jorge Mas

Jorge Mas, the billionaire chairman of Coral Gables-based development and engineering firm MasTec, is on to his subsequent act: soccer mogul.

Largest transfer of 2022: After years of forwards and backwards, Mas helped safe approval from the town for Inter Miami’s new soccer stadium, Miami Freedom Park.

What we’re watching: Whether or not he is highly effective sufficient to carry Messi to Miami.

5. Daniella Levine Cava

In her second yr as Miami-Dade mayor, Daniella Levine Cava tackled main points that may rework our metro’s panorama within the many years to come back.

• A few of her efforts had been thwarted, together with the county fee’s overruling of her veto of a venture that may lengthen improvement past the county’s City Improvement Boundary.
• Nonetheless, she scrapped a proposal to construct a privately operated monorail in favor of a Metromover extension to Miami Seashore, a venture value watching subsequent yr.

Largest transfer of 2022: Levine Cava declared a housing affordability disaster in Miami and proposed $500 million in funding for housing applications, which the County Fee accepted as a part of this yr’s funds.

• “This disaster calls for pressing motion, each to guard households dealing with excessive rents and evictions and develop the availability of inexpensive housing within the short- and long-term,” Levine Cava advised Axios.
• Some housing advocates have criticized landlord subsidies in Levine Cava’s plan for benefiting middle-class households as a substitute of lower-income residents.

What we’re watching: Levine Cava plans to announce an motion plan for tackling excessive warmth within the county subsequent week.

6. Billy Corben

Miami documentary filmmaker Billy Corben makes use of his lens to drive the dialog about tales that form our metropolis — from cocaine trafficking to the dominance of UM soccer.

• He additionally paperwork Miami’s story in actual time, utilizing his platform to criticize native politicians and draw consideration to what he finds fallacious with metropolis authorities.
• “It takes us greater than a yr to make a documentary, however in just some minutes, I can share an vital story about one thing taking place proper now on social media,” Corben advised Axios. “And whereas Twitter might have a personality restrict, Miami has limitless characters.”

Largest transfer of 2022: Corben’s newest only-in-Miami documentary “God Forbid,” about an alleged intercourse scandal involving Christian evangelical chief Jerry Falwell Jr., has develop into Hulu’s most-watched documentary ever.

What we’re watching: Corben and producer Alfred Spellman — who type the Miami Seashore-based studio Rakontur — simply wrapped their newest documentary, “The Final of the Cocaine Cowboys,” a four-part miniseries on Medellin cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder.

7. Camila Cabello

Camila Cabello left Palmetto Excessive, discovered fame with the singing group Fifth Concord, after which gained over the remainder of the nation with hits like “Havana” and “Senorita.”

• Although she’s going world, we’ll all the time declare her for Miami. And it appears she loves us again.

Largest transfer of 2022: She landed some of the coveted jobs within the music trade: a training gig on “The Voice.”

• On condition that simply 3.1% of lead actors in TV exhibits are Latino, Cabello is actually blazing a path and exhibiting South Florida — and the world — how far a proficient Miami girl can go.

What we’re watching: What new heights Cabello may attain after switching document labels this yr.

8. Dave Grutman

Groot Hospitality founder Dave Grutman began out as a bartender and masterfully parlayed his relationships into constructing an empire.

• The Miami hospitality entrepreneur now wears many hats: nightclub proprietor, restaurateur, superstar wrangler and, even, faculty teacher.

Largest transfer of 2022: Grutman helped world famous person Dangerous Bunny make his mark on Miami’s culinary scene by teaming as much as open Gekkō, a Japanese steakhouse in Brickell.

What we’re watching: Grutman’s going worldwide. He is hinted at future initiatives in Dallas, Las Vegas and Qatar, and a resort with Pharrell within the Bahamas.

9. Solely in Dade

If you happen to really need to know who runs issues round right here, you want solely look to Instagram, the place energy is definitely quantified. The mayor of Miami has 138,000 followers. The account Solely in Dade has 1 million.

• The neighborhood information and comedy account posts movies that seize the spirit of Miami and, in some way, unite us all.
• It is like a unending bloopers present — on which any of us is likely to be featured after we’re out and about, twerking on a cop automotive or by accident sinking our yacht within the Miami River.

Largest transfer of 2022: Marcello Hernández, identified for his comedy segments on Solely in Dade, joined the solid of “Saturday Evening Stay.”

What we’re watching: Public information and at the least one information report present Emilio Estefan having taken an possession curiosity in Solely in Dade. What is going to the hitmaker do with the biz?

Go deeper: See all 200 of Axios Native’s Energy Gamers in 2022